Ceramic monolithic structures have found utility in several areas. U.S. Pat. No. 3,926,851 to Sergeys describes a method for preparing an auto exhaust catalyst on a monolithic structure in which the ceramic monolith is prepared and coated with the inorganic oxides active for auto exhaust gas conversion. U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,186 to Sergeys describes a method of preparing a ceramic monolithic heat exchanger.
U.S. application Ser. No. 536,079 to Lundsager filed Dec. 24, 1974, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,963,504 describes a method of preparing these monolithic structures. Very broadly, this method comprises preparing a thermoplastic material containing a plasticizer and a ceramic filler, extruding the resulting mixture as a sheet and embossing ribs thereon, rolling the embossed sheet about a mandrel and heat sealing the ribs to the back of the adjacent sheet, extracting the plasticizer and heating to remove the thermoplastic material followed by sintering to convert the structure to a ceramic monolith.